Capeman Wormland
by axleonex
Summary: Series of one-shots where capes are pitted against each other to fight to the death, FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT!


He stared at me and I stared back. He was breathing heavily, or was that just me? I wasn't sure. Neither of use wanted to be there even though we had both said we'd be ready.

"Kasem," I called out. He didn't respond.

He was shaking. The sound of his name from my voice had shaken him. He couldn't fathom what we were about to do.

"WELCOME COME ALL!" The voice in the intercom yelled, "TO DEADMAN'S CARNIVAL CORPSE FEST! Where capes of all shapes and sizes come to fight to the death. FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT!"

The voice emphasized that last sentence, as though he were trying to un-ironically guilt the audience for the liking this form of entertainment.

"You know the rules folks, this is a DEATH FESTIVAL! The only way to win is to kill the opposing opponents!"

The voice lied. We had the choice to kill or to spare our opponents, but choosing to spare the enemy meant allowing the audience to choose who would play the penalty game. If they disliked the winner, the winner would pay the price. If they hated the loser enough, they could even choose to execute them. The only control they gave us was to murder each other.

"On your left you see the undefeated champion, the flaming animal kingdom from the south, Dustfire! With five victories without sparing a single opponent, she's got much to lose if her streak were to end today!"

The more we won, the more we gained. But losing streaks meant our families would get penalized more. It was like climbing up mountains, the higher we went, the steeper the valley became.

"And to you right, brand new to the world of heroes, first time vigilante down on his luck, Polaris! Who's graciously volunteered to join us at his own expense, AT THE CORPSE FESTIVAL!"

He was my brother. They matched us because they thought it would be interesting. He wasn't supposed to be a part of this, neither of us were. Our bond had re-connected us, and Gamemaster was trying to sever that bond. It was all a mad game to them.

"LET THE GAMES BEGIN!" The siren rang, and field revealed itself.

Lights turned on all around us and the field was set. The environment this time was a safari scrap yard. They wanted the temperature dry enough for me to use my powers, but with enough resources to give my brother an edge. Literally.

My instincts kicked in. _Five streaks_.I quickly ran to the side and out from my brother's line of sight. I knew my brother's powers revolved around metal, so I morphed into my flaming form and heated up as much metal around me. The temperatures raised, and his resources quickly began to melt..

My brother stood there, unmoving.

Shit. I returned to my normal form, and slowly took a few steps towards to him. "Kasem," I told him, "we agreed not to hold back if we faced each other. None of us knew we'd fight this soon, but we're here now. Keep that promise. Give it all you've got, so that we can give these people a show."

"INCREDIBLE! IT APPEARS DUSKFIRE STOPPED TO SPEAK WITH POLARIS! SHE DOESN'T EVEN NOTICE THE IRON SPIKES SURROUNDING HER!"

Gamemaster had an unusual sense of humor.

"What?" I looked behind me. Hidden just behind my peripheral vision, dozens of clunks of metal were surrounding me. They had morphed into the shapes of spears and quickly blitzed towards me.

I changed into my fiery form and skimmed between them. The spears smashed into the spot I was standing and I retreated back to my side of the field. Upon returning to my normal state, my arm was bleeding in pain. One the spears had scratched against my orb.

I looked a Kasem, surprised by his willingness to deceive my emotions. We had promised a fair fight.

Kasem gave me a blank stare. Metal was still melting around me, too dangerous for him to use. "Sorry, Mali." His voice was low, "I thought I could end this quickly, before we really had to fight. I didn't want this."

Ending fights before they could begin, that was always his policy. He was incredibly non-confrontational. He would've made an excellent vigilante, had he not picked the wrong fight with the wrong people.

I took a deep breathe and returned to my fire form. I was damaged, slower than I was before. He had scratched my orb. It was a small glass-like object that formed whenever I entered my flaming state. Had he hit the center, I would've died. I had told him about this secret before hand because I wanted to give him fighting chance. But now I could tell that this fight was already decided since its matchup.

I moved towards him. I changed into a shape of a snake, one so long that he couldn't find the orb within it's flaming length.

He threw chunks of metal towards me. Most were just falling junk metal, a few precision shots had touched my flames. My movement was too frantic and zig zagged for him to hit me properly. As I moved along the field, I made sure melt as much metal as I could to make the arena as hazardous for him as possible.

I moved close enough for him to feel the heat. He lifted up what resources he had left to cocoon himself in an iron shield.

I ran around it. I heard him scream. Not in agony, but in repentance. He was apologizing for the fight. Apologizing for his shame from earlier. I wanted to acknowledge it, but stopping now would've prolonged the fight. And prolonging the fight, or even sparing his life, would've caused our family to suffer.

His shield began to melt. I raised his temperature as I moved around him. His iron turned orange as I refused to stop moving even as his scraps became a falling liquid. The cacoon slowly collapsed atop of him. As the entirety of it fell apart, there were no remains left of him over the pool of molten metal.

I returned to my normal form. I looked down at the plastered metal for the first time with my own eyes. I could see a vague outline of what his body figure once was. Oddly, I felt cold. Like he was just another player.

"AND ONCE AGAIN WE HAVE A WINNER!" The intercom voice said. "THE UNDEFEATED CHAMPION, DUSTFIRE!"

XXX

My body tickled. Whenever I changed, I tickled for a quick moment, and then became air. Or more literally, an electric current.

I disappeared through the arena's intercom and traveled through the building. The biggest caveat with this ability was that I never knew where I was going. I could feel the outlets and lightbulbs, but to escape from those, it was better to map out the floor plan before 'jumping' into the circuit systems.

I moved through the ground. Or at least it felt like the ground. I was, deaf, and paralyzed. I had to rely on bumping into things to know where I was going.

This was just a leap of faith.

Water. I finally water. I jumped out of my electric form and landed in sewage water. I smiled, _I fucking made it!_ I walked through the sewage tunnels until I finally found a familiar spot. I explored these tunnels dozens of times back when I was a vigilante.

 _My sister might have a secret weakness, but I have a secret power._ Magnets was just a gimmick. It was more like an extension of my electricity powers. I once pretend to be a science type parahuman by levitating fancy decorated weapons. I also once pretended to be a strong type parahuman by making my punches cause numbness upon contact.

I just had to be subtle about my powers. Subtly let me adopt multiple names. And each time someone almost killed me, I'd just go circuit mood and disappear, allowing people to believe that the alias was dead.

I wish I could've told my sister.

It was better this way. I died, and our family couldn't get penalized for it. I lifted the sewage lid, and four arms grabbed a hold of me.

One pair of arms had claws that pierced into my skin, the other pair of arms were made of crystal, and they didn't budge as I struggled.

"What the fuck?" I yelled.

"What the fuck indeed," the women with the sharp claws said. She looked like she had paper thin skin. It was brown and peeling. Her hair was puffy and eccentric, dyed colorfully purple to make it ridiculously stand out.

The one with the crystal hands looked to be about my sister's age. Mid-twenties, bulky build with stylish combed hair. His skin was slightly darker than my tanned skin tone, and he looked at me with his mouth shaped like a line.

"You shouldn't have escaped," he said in an incredibly low voice. His crystal arms didn't move as I tried to burn his grip away. "Now, you're family will be penalized for it."

"Go ahead," I said, pretending not to care. "I never gave a shit about them anyway."

The man raised an eyebrow, surprised by my response.

"Let's cut'em up," the claw-girl said. "See how he would like it if it were him."

Good. Penalize me, not my family.

"No need for either of that," from behind them, a man in a cane approached us from the darkness.

Dammit, it was Gamemaster.

I struggled to free myself from their grasps, but I knew I had a better chance of ripping my own arms off. I would've done it too, but I didn't have knife with me.

The man who approached was similar to my own height. He had glasses with swirled designs on the frames. His neon braces glowed green as he smiled. His white tuxedo was unusually clean for the slums of Thailand.

"Never let good meat spoil, I always say," he pulled out his cane, and started smashing it against my legs. The bones broke, and the other two parahumans finally let go of me.

"I'll kill you," I promised. "I have friends. We'll find you, and kill you."

"You mean those contacts you have in America?" Gamemaster arched an eyebrow, "I'd be surprised if they took the time to visit tiny Thailand for little vigilante like you."

Gamemaster began hitting me with his cane. Mostly on the face, but also at the chest and back as well.

"You know, I'm trying pass a law right now. Make it so that whenever a parahuman does a crime, we execute three generations of their family." He was hitting me harder. Even though his voice was completely calm, his fury was channeled into his cane.

"Military officials. Political leaders. Wealthy businessmen. All of us need the games to have some order for you deviants." I was blacking out. He noticed it, and started lessening the strength in his hits.

"And people like you, try to break away that fragile order we established, for helping family that you didn't even choose. You're sister is a murderer. She should've been executed, but instead, we gave her the option to execute others for her life. You should be grateful that she's lived as long as she did."

I was on the floor, coughing up blood. I was about to pass out, but one of his partners kept throwing water at my face.

"You're going back to the Arena. And this time, you'll be fighting someone that won't go easy on you. And to make sure you don't escape," Game master took out a collar. He pulled out a multi-tool knife from his pocket, and re-adjusted a few knobs and screws on the mechanism. He placed the collar around my neck. "You'll be the first to test out an invention of mine. I've had plenty of freaks that don't care about their families. So this collar, this collar keeps nice surprises for you. From now on, all of your dreams are nightmares. It'll hurt for you to walk and breathe. You'll constantly see hallucinations around you. Hear voices that aren't there. And the only time that collar stops screwing you over, is when you're fighting for you life in the Arena."

Gamemaster stepped away from me for me to follow him, "C'mon, you're a Deadman now."


End file.
